When Sean Fitzgerald of the Toronto Sun asked Iggy Pop last October if he’s inspired by any Canadian artists, the punk icon replied:
“I really like U.S. Girls. I also just found out about Derek Miller, and the guy blew my mind. Unbelievable, you know? F---! What a f---ing talent! Whoa! What a vibe. And it’s pure. He’s not copping from any particular current craze. And I also just found out about The Sadies. Which is way different, and way more considered, and that’s really good, too. But I really like Derek Miller, dude. Like, what the f---? Who rocks like that anymore? Period. He can really bloody do it.”
High praise, indeed, and very fitting SooToday discovered when we spoke to Miller prior to his Friday evening performance at the Machine Shop.
“When I first started out, they all told me I sounded like the Stooges,” Miller said. “But I wasn’t really listening to The Stooges. And then I heard Link Wray, and I thought: ‘Yah, that’s what I sound like.’ It has this primal wickedness to it that I loved.”
Growing up in the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, Miller was surrounded by a variety of music and began playing guitar in his early teens. Over the years, he has recorded with and/or shared stage time with the likes of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, George Thorogood, and Daniel Lanois, and recorded an entire album with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s band Double Trouble.
“I didn’t want to do the Guitar Hero thing because they did it with the best. So it was us trying to expand, coming from my roots with Robbie Robertson and moving towards that,” he said of his experience with Double Trouble.
That release earned him his third Juno nomination for Aboriginal Album of the Year in 2011. He won two Juno Awards in 2003 and 2008, and was again nominated in 2016 for Rumble. Buffy Sainte-Marie beat Miller for the Juno that year for her acclaimed release Power in the Blood, an album on which Miller was a guest performer.
“Basically music for me has always been medicine. If I can have something that is helping me in some way, then I’m good with letting it go and have other people experience it. For me, it’s been a process of healing,” Miller explained. And fans of his music have told him his talents have impacted them in the same way.
“That’s what it’s intended to do. To have that feedback is incredible, and I’m glad that other people are getting something from that because it’s very humbling, too,” he said. “It’s a honed craft, songwriting. I produce and engineer, and learn technology. All that stuff is craftsmanship, but sometimes out of the ether things just fall into your lap and you have to take advantage of it when you can. To have people liking that is very gratifying and humbling at the same time.”
Having not performed in Sault Ste. Marie in quite a number of years, Miller’s return Friday night was extra special. Not only does he have friends from neighbouring reserves, his partner in life and love, Catherine Stefanizzi, was born and raised in our neck of the woods.
“Having a Batchewana woman keeping me straight has been very good for me. It’s a special thing to be able to come up here and play to her family,” he said.
In addition to his busy musician life, Miller can also be found in movies and on television. He appears in Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World which premiered at Sundance this past week to rave reviews, and season two of his APTN variety series Derek Miller’s Guilt Free Zone will air starting Mar. 18.
He also races cars. True story.
To learn more about Derek Miller, please click here.